PORTFOLIO DAYDR.EAMING ON PAPER. The cartoons of Jack Ziegler. .-". :.<.:.:.::::.. ...::::::::.::: :.:.:..,y':':;:2 : :-: ' :':_ ':::.: :. _ }ft \ M ", ' - :" , ' . . , - . -..-. . ... :;:: : : }:. -::.:-.-." . -.-:-. . ._.:,: ,:,:,: :,':f::::::-' ..- -.v.. ,:: .:: .: , . .. '-": "-".:;:.:"",""'" . <<René Magritte vS. Be.tty Crocker" M any cartoonists are content to pursue traditional comedy by traditional means, to walk the well- trodden, carefully landscaped paths of classic setups and classic punch lines. In this context, Jack Ziegler is an off- road vehicle. He is, of course, a master of all the familiar genres, but he's even more at home in stranger precincts, where he leaves aside observations of human foibles and tries only to con- nect with the inner workings of his own imagination. During three decades as a cartoon- ist- Ziegler has been drawing for The New Yorker regularly since the earlysev- 150 THE NEW YORKER., NOVEMBER II, 2002 enties-he has publIshed gag cartoons, current-events cartoons, and character- driven cartoons. But his most memo- rable cartoons are singular, synapse- tweakJ.ng works that draw equally on the subconscious and the mundane to produce a kind of pocket Surrealism. "Most of those evolve out of doodles," Ziegler says. "They don't come from a newspaper headline or from something I overheard. The writing doesn't come first. The picture comes first, and when it starts to look good to me I keep fid- dling with it." This process, which Ziegler calls "daydreaming on paper," has yielded such uncategorizable productions as "Empire State Building and a Side of Fries," ' sk Not for Whom the Refrig- erator Hums-It Hums for Thee," and the plasticene fantasia of "Other Peo- ple's Stuff" Often cartoonists, like comedians, develop routines: they have stock com- panies of recognizable characters and comic strategies that are revisited and refined over time. Not Ziegler. He has an explanation for why he never repeats himself: "I find that when I'm doing my doodling I am most interested in what surprises me, and that's what I end up using " .